Category Archives: Erosion and Sediment Control

The Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition has initiated the Twelve Days of Accountability. On each of 12 days beginning in mid-December we are submitting at least one Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) to Virginia state officials and agencies responsible for oversight of pipeline construction. With regulatory approvals for both the Atlantic Continue Reading →

The Virginia DEQ only inspects pipeline projects on a “complaint driven basis.” In an effort to determine just how this works and to address an immediate and serious environmental problem, the DPMC filed a complaint with the DEQ on November 11, 2015 concerning non-compliance with erosion and sediment control and stormwater Continue Reading →

The Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition has submitted a complaint and request for enforcement to the Virginia DEQ concerning non-compliance with Virginia erosion and sediment control and stormwater management requirements at the Columbia Gas of Virginia (CGV) pipeline construction project on Peters Mountain in Giles County. CGV failed to prepare and adhere to Continue Reading →

Dominion has responded to concerns about impacts to the rare Cow Knob salamander with an extreme proposal to drill though Shenandoah Mountain. The so-called horizontal directional drilling would involve two separate sections of 1.3 and 1.1 miles. Damage to Cow Knob salamander habitat would not be completely avoided, a native Continue Reading →

Pipeline construction over steep Appalachian mountains creates significant runoff and slope-failure problems. Dominion Transmission, Inc., for example, was fined in 2014 for serial slope failures at one of its pipeline projects in West Virginia. In that case, as in others, the difficulties associated with construction in extreme landscape have been compounded Continue Reading →

One small stream in West Virginia is at the epicenter of mega pipeline construction in the central Appalachian region. If industry plans go forward, a two-mile stretch of Meathouse Fork and it’s tributaries, Big Isaac Creek and Laurel Run, will be crossed by three of the largest pipelines ever built in the region. The smaller of these, Continue Reading →

The Nelson County Board of Supervisors is calling on Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and state environmental officials to ensure public access to erosion and sediment control plans for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. In a 4-0 vote (July 14, 2015), the supervisors passed a resolution requesting that: DEQ will require project-specific Erosion and Continue Reading →

We face proposals for construction of at least three 42-inch pipelines for moving shale gas across the mountains from West Virginia to Virginia and the southeast. These pipelines will be the largest ever built in this region. Pipeline construction on this scale, across this type of landscape, will result in Continue Reading →

We have been promised that the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline will be environmentally responsible. Governor McAuliffe made that promise when he joined Dominion in announcing the ACP project in September of 2014. Dominion has since informed us of its commitment to protection of natural resources in a series of full-page Continue Reading →

The following is a letter to Virginia’s Governor Terry McAuliffe asking that he direct the Department of Environmental Quality to take steps to obtain site-specific erosion and sediment control and stormwater management plans for the ACP and make them available to citizens and local governments. As it stands now, the Continue Reading →

The effectiveness of standard measures for mitigation of water resource impacts associated with pipeline construction is a significant issue that needs to be systematically examined during EIS preparation. The EIS should analyze the provisions, implementation, and effectiveness of water-related environmental laws, regulations, and best management practices that apply to pipeline Continue Reading →

Virginia’s Governor McAuliffe has repeatedly declared that the 550-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline can be built in an environmentally sound way. He first promised, at a joint Commonwealth-Dominion Press Conference, that the ACP would be the most environmentally responsible pipeline ever built in U.S. history. Although our governor has a limited understanding of the environmental Continue Reading →

Atlantic Coast Pipeline

The proposed pipeline will cross the central Allegheny Highlands, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the adjacent valleys. It will cut through 30 miles of national forest and cross numerous rivers, streams, and wetlands. This area represents the heart of the remaining wild landscape in the eastern United States, and it is a major biodiversity refugium that can only increase in rarity and importance.

The proposed pipeline will be 42 inches in diameter, requiring excavation of an 8 to 12-foot-deep trench and the bulldozing of a 125-foot-wide construction corridor straight up and down multiple steep-sided forested mountains. It will require construction of heavy-duty transport roads and staging areas for large earth-moving equipment and pipeline assembly. It will require blasting through bedrock, and excavation through streams and wetlands. It will require construction across unstable and hydrologically sensitive karst terrain.

Pipeline construction on this scale, across this type of steep, well-watered, forested mountain landscape, is unprecedented.

It will be impossible to avoid degradation of water resources, including heavy sedimentation of streams, alteration of runoff patterns and stream channels, disturbance of groundwater flow, and damage to springs and water supplies.

It will be impossible to avoid fragmentation and degradation of intact, high-integrity forests, including habitat for threatened and endangered species and ecosystem restoration areas.